MGSV: Tactical flOPS
by bluRaaven
Summary: Ocelot learns an important lesson. Namely, that Big Boss has a terrible sense of humour.
1. Boxed In

Revolver Ocelot is not a man known for his patience.

An excellent marksman, torturer, and spy; to the soldiers he is the man who issues orders around Mother Base when Big Boss isn't around.

To the recruits he is 'Yes, Sir!' or simply the man who will make them eat their own livers if they do not perform to expectation.

Since he has woken up from his coma, Venom has gotten to know his old comrade as a man with a fondness for his own voice, given to recording long-winded and mind-numbing speeches on cassette tapes that, unbeknownst to the Russian, Venom habitually overplays with music without a care for their previous contents.

Ocelot is a walking lexicon with a downright uncanny amount of trivial and apparently completely random knowledge, possessed of an eccentric sense of fashion, and a weird fetish for horse-related gadgets.

And while good Intel may be the basis that allows for successful infiltration work, it also happens to be the area that personally suits him least out of all the other fields.

Venom is a man of action.

He appreciates the hard work of the team that supports him in the field, but it is one thing to be handed the mission details in a file for study during the ten hour flight to the mainland, or to listen to Kaz' voice grow rougher with every hour spent on the comm; and another entirely to suffer through an in-depth debriefing with Shalashaska.

It is the true meaning of torture and, unlike that fortunate commander, he has no convenient shaska to fall onto.

This is how Mission: Evasion came to be. Miller would give it a better name, surely, something along the lines of _Sneaky Snake,_ but the XO is not involved.

"Snake."

That voice conveys the thinly veiled annoyance in a manner that makes Venom freeze on the spot. The box comes to a stop with the rough drag of cardboard on concrete. A tense moment of silence follows, but things seem calm enough, so Venom dares to take a cautious, carefully measured step forward.

Only to bump into something.

There is a curse, followed by,

"Quit fooling around."

The slit is too damn narrow for him to see through. R&D will have to do something about that. Venom stills again. Peeks through the gap at a different angle. He can see leather, the brown leather of a boot. The foot taps the ground. Spurs jingle.

He's going in the wrong direction, it seems. The iDroid shares that opinion. Venom, protected from the scathing glare of the Tactical Instructor by trusty cardboard, marks his goal and begins the slow and arduous crawl backwards, until his foot hits metal.

"You have arrived at your destination," says the lady with the professionally sexy voice.

"Are you kidding me?" asks Ocelot.

He has to crouch and take a step over the threshold, and then it still takes some tricky manoeuvring to get the position just right. When he does, Venom allows himself to lie down and relax. Mission complete – almost. He is now one box amongst many, and while there may be others like it, this one is his.

The sound of leather creaking reaches his ears in the next instant.

"Alright," Venom hears Ocelot announce joyfully, "I'm shooting on three. One"

Venom looks at his wristwatch. The truck is running late. Murphy's law, he guesses. He wishes he wasn't as intimately familiar with it.

"Two."

This is going to be a close one. While he has gotten not as much accustomed as resigned to letting himself be treated for injuries suffered in the line of work, he really wishes to avoid having to explain to the medical team as to why he needs some lead pulled out of his backside. Why Ocelot thinks that bullet-wounds are something his life lacks, is a mystery.

xxxx

Ocelot's finger tightens on the trigger. So god help him, he is going to shoot Snake _._

 _Never make a threat you do not mean to follow through with._

That sound familiar, Boss?

Miller is going to murder him when he finds out. Or hurl his crutch at him, which is the next closest thing.

"Thr-"

He is interrupted by the double honk of a horn. The delivery truck rolls around the corner, and two members of the Base Expansion Team jump out. They salute him briefly, before going about their duties.

Ah, of course. It is noon. Ocelot chuckles. If he had arrived a couple of minutes late...

"Snake," he cajoles, softly. The other man has to know that he has seen through his plan.

The soldiers are almost done loading the few crates, and Snake still refuses to come out of his cardboard castle. It is time for him to learn that it cannot bear his weight, in a rather humiliating way that Ocelot plans to enjoy to the fullest.

The Russian smirks in satisfaction as the soldiers lift the box. In the next moment the smile is draining from his face, slowly, like stagnant water from that clogged washbasin in the third floor's common bathroom he has avowed to never visit again after the incident with the exploding toilet.

There is no sign of the Boss. Ocelot's brain is still busy processing what his eyes tell him, because it is _just not possible_. He has not taken his eyes off that damned box, not for a single bloody second.

Harried Badger and Merry Sloth shoot curious glances in his direction as he slowly circles the loading area.

A glare from the Russian sends them scurrying, double time.

There is nowhere Snake could have gone; no place for him to hide. He still must be here, somewhere.

Ocelot decides to try a more diplomatic approach.

"You can come out now."

There is no answer. He has already completed not one, but two full circles, and found no hidey holey his superior could have escaped into. Just to be sure, Ocelot gets down on one knee, and checks under the railing. Then he straightens, and peers over it. He spends a good couple of minutes scanning the sea for a floating body. Then he taps the metal floor in search of hollow spaces.

It is another twenty minutes before he is ready to admit defeat. Snake has slithered between the cracks in the concrete, just like his namesake, or merely vanished into thin air.

o

Ocelot lasts a week before he can take it no longer. Snake's eye flicks upwards at the unmistakable sound of his footsteps, but he does not otherwise acknowledge his approach.

"Fine." The Russian spreads his arms in a gesture of which he hopes that it conveys all the frustration of the past days. "I learned my lesson. You win, Boss." The words do not come easily. "Are you happy now?"

Snake grunts noncommittally, and raises a can of that teeth-rotting stuff he seems to crave to his lips. Ocelot watches in impatient silence as he drains it, head tilted all the way back, throat moving. Done with the drink, the other man crushes the can in his prosthetic hand and tosses it in the direction of the bin. It bounces off the edge, spins, and somehow still manages to land inside.

Snake's full attention is now on Ocelot, who briefly contemplates the unfairness of life.

"You're going to make me ask, aren't you?" The Russian laughs, and it comes out strained and bitter, even to his own ears. He has to remind himself that there is nothing to be ashamed of in being defeated by Big Boss.

Nine years bereft of that particular feeling have left him... cocky.

Snake blinks. "Something wrong?"

Ocelot swallows past the initial urge to shoot that barely perceptible smirk off his superior's face, and grits his teeth. "How?" Ocelot tries again, and when no answer is forthcoming, "How did you do it?"

"You tell me."

Another lesson from the legend. Ocelot used to scoff at those, but that was before he had learned their true value. "You couldn't have left that box. There was no place for you to go; I _checked_. You weren't inside that truck, either, and-"

" _Damn_." Realization dawns. "You weren't there at all, were you?" It is not a question, and he snorts at the obvious solution he failed to see before. "R &D made you a mobile decoy, you sneaky bastard."

"Ocelot," Snake chuckles, shakes his head, and heaves himself to his feet.

Fooled again. The younger man has had enough. "Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to keep gloating? Because, frankly, you're insufferable like this."

The Boss just beckons him to come closer, after briefly scanning their surroundings.

Ocelot does as he is bidden. If this information is for him and him alone, he cannot but feel a spark of something he thinks he had buried long ago. A crook of Snake's fingers is all it takes to bring him even closer, until he has to fight the urge to push the other man away.

He doesn't like having another predator breathing down his neck.

Snake closes the last inch, until Ocelot can feel the faint brush of his beard against his cheek, and smell the sweetness of liquid sugar on his breath. Warm breath tickles the shell of his ear in a soft caress, as Venom whispers,

"You've got to think outside of the box."

Ocelot barely registers the hearty slap on his shoulder that nearly knocks him over. Big Boss retreats again and does his vanishing trick, leaving him alone to nurse the threatening headache Ocelot is developing more and more often these days.


	2. Why did you keep me waiting for so long?

Life has become a blend of a myriad of sensations, and none of them pleasant. There is the shock of waking to a splash of ice-cold water, followed by the painful stab of light, too-bright light, and then rough hands grab him, dragging him upright.

Then come the questions.

At least there is a predictability to it, a certain kind of routine.

There is a bed in the room, but he has to kneel on the floor, chained to a pipe. A jug of water stands on the bedside table, in perfect view, but his lips are cracked from thirst and his throat is sore with the taste of blood and bile. Food rots on a platter, swarmed by flies.

"Speak," the man in glasses says, "And you can rest tonight."

 _Aren't you thirsty?_

 _You surely must be hungry._

 _Speak, and we will let you use the outhouse._

He knows them all, those tantalizing promises that are meant to break his will, and can only shake his head, because he does not trust his mouth to form the word 'no'.

A disappointed sigh at his continued stubbornness is his only answer. "Why make this so hard on yourself?" The voice is kind. It always is.

It will not stop them from eventually moving on to other, more direct means of torture, he knows.

Resolution will not stop him from talking, _they_ know.

In the days that follow, Kazuhira Miller finds out that it is impossible to lose consciousness when he's hung head-down – and every day he learns anew the worthlessness of the vows he recites each evening before he succumbs to his fever-ridden body's demand for rest.

It's almost better when they throw his corpse in the corner and pull the hood over his head again, and everything fades back into darkness.

oooo

There is nothing to distinguish that particular morning from any other.

He has not been interrogated in two days. Either the Russians are awaiting new orders, or his time is up. It is hard to muster any kind of emotion about his impending execution, except for maybe a vague sense of relief that it all will finally be over. He only hopes the soldiers are not under orders to conserve ammunition.

The feeling that something is inherently wrong doesn't strike him until he realizes that it has been way too long since he has heard the footsteps of the man whose patrol takes him past Kaz's window every couple of minutes.

Even now, though barely conscious, he cannot forget what training has ingrained so deeply into him, that it has become second nature.

Outside, birds sing without a care for the world and its wars, and soldiers still talk about the change of seasons back home, and about how long until they can return, but inside… inside, a watchful stillness descends over the building. It carries a whiff of gunpowder and tobacco and unbidden, a single word slips from his numb lips.

"Boss?"

There is no reply. No squeak of a sole, no rustle of fabric to give away position, but Kazuhira nonetheless senses it draw near, can feel another's presence loom over him like a cloud passing before the sun, dark and heavy. Despite the stifling heat of the Afghan midday sun, the room feels cold all of a sudden.

He imagines he can hear his own name fall in the silence, but over the ringing in his ears he cannot tell. _You're delirious_ , says the rational part of his mind. _There's nobody here, no one – except for those who have come to dispose of you. Quit fooling yourself, Miller._

He is just as blind as he was before when the blindfold is lifted off his head. "No more use for me, huh?"

The shape before him shrinks to a less intimidating size. In the next instant he can feel the touch of hands to his face, firm but not rough and yet somehow… caring.

"Kaz, it's me. I'm here to get you out."

He would recognize that voice, the man in belongs to, anywhere. "Snake?"

Kazuhira senses his old commander nod rather than sees him do it, but then worry creeps into the soldier's voice, such a strange sensation to be associated with the legend. Kaz' chin is tilted upwards and though Snake's grip is warm, it is still iron.

"They do something to your eyes?"

"No," Kaz shakes his head slowly, but it is enough to send the room spinning, "It's… it's just bright, is all." Talking is more difficult than he expects it to be, considering that the Soviets have given him plenty of occasions to use his voice recently.

With a brush of cool metal against his temples the world dims into blessed shade, comes into focus behind the tinted glass of his aviators. Miller clutches at the gift, now as appreciated as back in '74 when John bought them for him in that tacky souvenir shop in Costa Rica.

Does he remember?

The man kneeling before Kazuhira is a ghost of his former self. Time has not been kind to Snake. Older and weary to the bone and fifty pounds underweight, his face is a roadmap of so many scars, it borders on unfamiliar. Yet unmistakably it is _him_.

And with Big Boss here at last, it gives rise to a new question.

 _"What took you so long?"_

And underlying it _, Why did you abandon me?_

It hangs between them, a sad testimony to the broken man Kaz has become.

John hesitates for the fraction of a second, enough that Miller imagines that he can see guilt in the other man's eye. It passes quickly and leaves no trace.

"We'll talk," he says, back to his gruff self, "But not here."

The key to the handcuffs magically appears in Snake's hand. It is only a moment before he has freed his friend and slings his arm around his neck. A brief flash of vertigo follows, and then instead of taking them both to safety, Snake goes down heavily on one knee.

For a second Kaz is afraid that he will not make it back to his feet.

Then the other man grabs the pipe and heaves himself upright, getting his legs back under him like a newborn colt.

"Here."

Something knocks against Kaz' arm, distracting him from the way Boss' breathing sounds wrong, coming too fast and shallow. After fumbling for it clumsily with his left, Miller's hand closes on the grip of a pistol. He prays that he won't have to use it, but he welcomes the end to the helplessness he has endured over the past weeks.

On their way out, John pauses by the radio and pockets the cassette tape.

oooo

"Good thing I'm not so heavy anymore, right?"

Snake answers with a noncommittal grunt and keeps going. He has trouble keeping a straight line, but he is putting one foot in front of the other with a doggedness that soon puts the outline of Ghwandi out of sight.

Only then does he stop, and though he attempts to put his friend down gently, the impact with the ground still knocks the air from Kazuhira's lungs. Worst of all, they haven't gone nearly far enough to be out of danger.

How long until the Soviets notice their prisoner has gone missing?

Snake leaves Kaz with a bottle of water and the gun, an instruction and a promise.

"Stay low. I'll be back."

Miller knows that time passes by the play of light and shadow as clouds race across the sky. When he catches sight of Snake in the distance, leading a white horse, it takes him a good while to realize that their means of locomotion indeed comes on four hooves; and that this is not a vision conjured by his delirium.

Kaz ends up slung over the beast's withers like a sack of potatoes. Behind him, the saddle rocks as Snake mounts up.

It is probably a good thing both of them have lost so much weight, because Kaz isn't sure that the horse wouldn't collapse under their combined weight otherwise.

He is lulled by the its rocking gait and the dull pain of his bruised ribs that comes and comes and goes in waves.

John will see to it that they make it out in one piece. He will fix this mess; he always does. Kaz closes his eyes and allows himself to drift.

oooo

"What's that mist?"

"Mist?" Kaz repeats tiredly, the question breaking through his stupor. "What mist?" he raises his head. Between one bout of consciousness and another, the sun has set and the desert is flooded in the cool, harsh light of a nearly perfect full moon.

A green-tinged vapor hangs before then, stretches all the way from one end of the valley to another, effectively cutting off their way. Tendrils of smoke roll lazily, coiling like snakes.

Breathing suddenly becomes a conscious effort. His heart jumps into the same rapid-fire beat it assumed when he was shown and explained the use of the instruments his captors were going to use on him.

"It 's them!"

"Who?" Boss puts away his binoculars with a heavy sigh at their uselessness, the only indicator of how on-edge he truly is, and nudges the horse forward. Caught between one enemy and another they cannot double back, and the only way forward lies through the opaque sea of iridescent fog.

"The Skulls," Kaz manages to force out, for the first tome speaking out loud the name he has secretly given the mist unit. "We were on our way back from training the Mujahideen at a mountain camp in Kunar Province. All of a sudden, visibility got real bad. It was no sandstorm. Our point man gave this strange report. He said he could see skulls in the mist."

"Skulls?"

Snake rises in his stirrups, lifts one hand to his brow in an attempt to survey their surroundings. It's no use.

"The next moment he went silent." Kaz is too caught up in reliving the memory; the initial rush of adrenaline. The crackling of the comms, confusion and mounting fear in the voices of the men. The faint smell of sulphur, the same cold sweat prickling his back.

"We scrambled into formation, right before his arms and legs came raining down on us."

Snake's hand comes to rest on his back, heavy, steadying.

"Kaz, I need you to stay with me."

"Boss. " He doesn't care that he is panting. "Don't let them find us. Go faster!"

"Horse can't go faster."

"No-"

Big Boss has always been a one-man army in his own right, but this foe is beyond even him. And this time, this time Kaz is of less use than he was to his comrades, back when he was in fighting shape and not just cargo; a burden in human form.

A tall, dark silhouette appears directly in front of them, darker than the night. Beneath them, the horse shies, nearly throwing them both.

"Whoa. Easy. Eaaasy." For a moment Kaz is not sure whom Snake is talking to. He pats the animal's neck and Kazuhira's back alternatively; and how pathetic is it that the latter should feel so much reassurance at the touch?

A rock. That's all it was, he tells himself. He tries to make it out again, but in the roiling clouds, it has disappeared, swallowed by the mist.

"Shit!" John was never a man to curse often, but the grim whisper draws Kaz' attention. His eyes following Snake's line of sight, to the horse's ears. They move back and forth, restlessly, then settle with one pointing to the back, the other to the left. Boss allows the horse to face the threat, then turns it in the opposite direction.

The compass in his watch and their faithful steed's hearing are their only guidance from there on.

At one time, when a particularly strong gust of wind thins out the mist, they can both see the unnatural glow of eyes to their far left. The human-shaped _things_ lurch and jerk like marionettes dancing to the will of a mad puppeteer, yet when they move, they do so with nearly inhuman speed.

"Breathe," John says, not unkindly, and because he has always followed his commander's lead, Kaz tries to comply with this one, simple command.

oooo

Their camp, when hours later they stop at John's insistence that the horse needs a break, is dark and the mood is grim. Kazuhira tries to suppress the shivers wracking his frame, though he guesses that with Big Boss watching, there's no use pretending. He is proven right soon enough.

"Kaz."

He does not want John to see him like this, to call his name in that soft, too-knowing tone.

"These things," he starts for the need to say something, _anything._ "That's the unit that attacked us before." He tries to ignore how his voice wavers, and thankfully Snake does not comment, does not interrupt.

"They came at us real fast, in the same kind of mist. Our men – survivors from nine years ago – were wiped out in minutes." He licks at the split in his lip that breaks open anew each time he speaks, and the sting is barely enough to ground him when the onslaught of memories threatens to overwhelm.

"And I had Diamond Dogs' very best with me that day. We were calling out to each other. But one by one... their voices just went dead." This is the part that hurts most, the pain of loss far greater than anything the Soviets had done to him. Scarred, stunted, his body will, unlike the raw wounds torn into his very soul, eventually heal.

Snake's expression does not change when he asks, "What happened next?"

"I lost consciousness before I knew it," Kazuhira admits. "When I came to, I was in a Soviet camp, tied to an interrogation chair."

 _Keep it together. Just a little longer. The last thing_ he _needs, is you falling apart._

"I didn't know you could ride," Kaz chokes out, the first thing that comes to mind. "Always full of surprises, eh, Boss?"

oooo

The rest of their journey is blurry. He remembers the grit of sand between his teeth, and the low burr of John's voice as he talked his horse through rough terrain. There was a pink helicopter and a man who bore a rather striking resemblance to Freddy Mercury.

He is now lying on a field bed, his own face looking back at him from the center of the roof. Somebody wraps him in a Diamond Dogs bomber jacket. Pequod, he realizes; their pilot. It must be his own. He draws it closer around himself, not just for the added warmth, but for the comfort it offers.

"Kaz?" Snake's voice drifts over from where he has collapsed on the back bunk.

"Yes?"

"You OK?"

He knows what the other man is asking, and gives a nod in answer. Why the other man would ask his permission, is beyond him.

"Mission complete, Boss," he says dutifully. "Get some rest, Snake. You look worse than I do." Kaz catches the low, mirthless chuckle and follows his own advice, closing his eyes. Seconds later he is fighting oblivion, struggles to raise himself on one elbow.

"John? Just one more thing."

He thinks Snake has fallen asleep, but then his lone eye cracks open, a sliver of teal, sharp but without focus.

"The magic words, Boss," Kaz breathes, remembering. "I've been waiting nine years to hear 'em. C'mon. Say it for old times' sake."

It takes a while for the plea to sink in. Just when he is about to give up on receiving a reply of any kind, Snake's soft murmur reaches his ears.

"Kept you waiting, huh?"

It really is him. He's back. Big Boss has returned.

The last thing Kazuhira Miller remembers is Pequod as he drapes two heavy blankets over John's sleeping form, who doesn't even stir. A moment later the chopper comes to life beneath him, and the drone of then engine and rotors drowns out any last thoughts.


	3. Who was he?

"Who was he?"

"Pardon?" Kaz' head snaps up from the pile of folders and loose papers that are stacking up alarmingly high on his desk.

Snake is half-hidden in the deep shadows of the room, leaning against the doorway in a manner that would appear nonchalant to all but those who know him best.

 _How long has he been here, waiting? Watching._

The thought is mildly unsettling.One of these days Kazuhira will have to introduce his Boss to the concepts of knocking and personal space, lest he become a caveman in behaviour as well as in appearance. But he senses that it will have to be neither here, nor now. Despite his seemingly relaxed posture, there is a certain tension radiating from the other man.

Snake pushes off from the wall and approaches his friend. The prints he lays down on the polished wood have lost only a little of their gloss over the years, and he smoothes out the slight creases with great care.

Kaz instantly recognizes the pictures, the ones they had taken before that fateful mission, when Snake had left for Cuba to infiltrate Camp Omega. Before XOF had sent them all to hell. He looks at their younger, clueless faces, takes in the triumph and confidence written in their poses, drinking it all in like poison.

There they are; Big Boss, Morpho, himself, and-"

"Medic," Snake finishes for him, a finger tapping the masked man furthest to the right. "Ocelot told me what happened. When the bomb went off, he threw himself in front of me."

Kaz sighs and removes his glasses to rub at the sore spots on the bridge of his nose. He struggles with putting them back on again, nearly taking out his eye in the process when the temples fold, before asking, "How much do you remember?"

John replies with a heavy sigh. He must be sick of that very question by now.

Kaz regrets breaching the subject, but he will not relent. He will not allow Big Boss to shoulder the guilt for the downfall of MSF. If anything, it was he who had failed his commander.

'Hold the fort,' John had told him.

The words still burn, branded into his very soul.

"Amnesia is not a crime, you know. What happened, that was all Cipher's doing. And _hers_. But it was _not_ your fault!" It comes out more aggressively than he intended to, and he has to pause to get his breathing back under control.

Snake answers with silence, though the muscles in his jaw are twitching. He picks up the hoola girl that serves as Kaz' paperweight, and doesn't look his XO in the eye when he forces out, "The only crime here is that haircut you had."

It's not graceful, but it is a way out. Kaz can take a hint when he is slapped in the face with it. "No," he replies and rescues the small plastic woman from the cold clutch of Snake's prosthetic hand. It is a token from Mother Base that somehow, inexplicably had survived and found its way back into his office.

"The _real_ crime here is that you let me walk around with that haircut. That's non-feasance."

The joke, feeble as it is, doesn't exactly lighten the mood, but it serves to take off the edge. It even draws a small, dry chuckle from Snake, who relinquishes his grip only to turn his attention to the other gadgets haphazardly strewn about his XO's desk.

"Good thing we record it for posterity," Boss rumbles, his hands wandering from a Diamond Dogs mug that should see the dishwasher before it is becomes a biological hazard, to the silver letter opener.

Kaz watches him pick up each item and lift it up for closer study, before it gets put back without any regard to its proper place.

Finally John seems to lose interest, and the irritation within the blond abates. He likes his chaos just the way it is, but the other man's curiosity about his everyday objects - almost like he wasn't quite sure what their intended purposes are - convinces him to let the matter slip.

"Just tell me about the man," Snake says after a while, serious again. He circles the desk to stand next to the window. Outside, the winking red lights of the helipad are just visible through the gathering fog.

"Alright. But first; What brought this on?"

"Nothing." Despite his evident reluctance, Snake continues hesitantly. Just as a wound needs to be drained of pus, some matters have to be spoken of, lest they weigh heavily on the mind and fester.

"Just… I owe him my life. And I've tried, but… I can't even recall his face. Or his real name. Seems like the least I can do is remember the man who died to save me."

"Don't beat yourself up over not knowing his name, Boss," Kaz is quick to reply. "None of us knew."

John's head snaps around at that. "He didn't have a name?"

"Oh, I'm sure he had one. He just never shared it with us." He motions for Snake to grab a seat, because Boss' prowling is putting him on edge.

Instead of sitting down like a civilized person, John flips the chair around and straddles it, arms crossed over its back, chin resting atop.

"The day he came to us, Raven was charge of the recruits. She complained that he couldn't use a profession as a name, to which his only answer was,

'The fuck's wrong with _Medic_?'/

"I remember only because I nearly had to break up a fight, then."

"He doesn't sound like the kind of person you'd recruit," Snake comments.

"That's just the thing." Not aware of the action, Kaz taps his index against a manila folder. "We didn't. He found _us_. Arrived carrying no personal belongings, no documents, nothing."

Not even Intel had been able to scrap together any kind of background on the man. A complete blank slate, the prudent thing would have been to turn him away, but back in those days they had been in desperate need of medical staff with actual field experience. So they had reluctantly taken him in, keeping a close watch on their newest addition.

"Our best guess was that he must have defected from some special forces."

He had the training, that much was clear. Once Big Boss had taught him the principles of the CQC he and the Boss had invented, he had instantly implemented them into his own fighting style. The general rule had been that once he got hold of you, you had already lost. Medic could dislocate your joints before you could think of their names.

Kazuhira had never known another man who could apply lever holds so fast that more often than not, not even the legendary Snake could slither his way out of them.

"Remember when he wiped the floor with you?"

Snake shakes his head, then tilts it to the side, his blue eye fixed on Kaz.

The blond takes it as an indicator to continue.

"You refused to take your shots. I believe the words 'Make me!' fell from your lips."

"He did?"

Kaz laughs, and John's lips curl slightly in answer. He knows that mirth has been sadly absent from their latest conversations, and pushes away the pang of guilt. Time to rectify that. "You could say that. He wrestled you into a headlock and proceeded to stick nine needles in your arse. Three of which he later admitted were fakes. He wasn't being exactly gentle, either. You slept on your belly for two days."

 _Always proud to be of service, Boss._

"Man had some serious balls, that's for sure."

It was all different in the field, of course. There, you followed Big Boss' orders without hesitation. But back in base, the two shared a mutually agreed upon rivalry not unlike that between John and Kaz.

Snake had always enjoyed a challenge, had been drawn to people who opposed him rather than those who showered him with blind adoration.

"Do tell. What was he like?"

So Kaz does.

Though brothers in arms, Medic had never been close enough to consider the other a friend. Most of Kaz' memories are fragments from when their paths had crossed, usually on the field of battle. He doesn't think this is the right moment to tell John about how the soldier had stitched up their comrades, often under enemy fire, or how they had nearly come to blows once in Ecuador, when Medic had in cold blood put his service knife through Coyote's chest.

"If I had to put it short, I'd say he was professionally cold."

Snake grunts. Apparently it's not the answer he expected.

Kaz keeps the rest of that particular train of thoughts to himself.

 _You remind me of him, sometimes. I wonder; who rubbed off on whom?_

"Other than that, he didn't talk much. Kept to himself, mostly. Never mentioned any friends or family, either. But to his dying day he was loyal to MSF, and to you, Boss. There were a few men he was closer with," he remembers. "Jackal, Black Widow, and later Morpho's co-pilot. What was his name again?"

Shake shakes his head in answer.

"The guy who kept insisting that he wasn't German," Kaz adds, before he is forced to admit defeat. I guess it doesn't matter anyway."

He cannot help the bitterness creeping up in his voice, tries to cover it up by quickly saying, "Even if you listened to no other, you at least usually had the sense to listen to him."

John hoists an eyebrow at that last statement. "That envy?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Kaz replies, deadpan.

Snake's answering grin is a strange expression, brief and sharp, and not exactly friendly.

It is a stark contrast to the words that follow. "Kaz. You always were and will be my Second."

Before his flustered officer can reply, John climbs to his feet.

"Now. Let us honour Medic by not further aggravating the medical stuff, huh?" With that, he pulls the power cord of the desk lamp and the room is plunged in darkness. As if that was not enough, said lamp gets promptly tucked under one arm and disappears along with the man.

"Hey! Give that back, Snake!"

"Good night, Kaz," Big Boss' voice floats over to him from the other side of the room, just before the door shuts with a soft click, leaving Kaz with no alternatives but to comply.


End file.
